Matchstick Men
It is very sad when a movie barely scratches to earn back the money that it was cost to make. Sometimes the movie sucks and that explains everything. But sometimes we get films like Tenet, Blade Runner 2049 and Hugo. Wonderful amazing movies that failed to be the sensations they deserve to be. You know, the kind of feeling today's kids have when they type "This should have got more views" in the comments on YouTube.
Steven Spielberg Promotes Sharing
When you make a film, you tent to seek inspiration and advice from those who make good films. Before September my main activities were my job and the articles I write. I did some programming on the side. Like the infamous FastLBRY LBRY client. But that was it.
No Respect For Those Who Give Up
When I was about 16 years old I went into my friend's house and saw a guitar. Without even having any money I asked him "How much for the guitar?". And bought it immediately. I had to return him chunks of money for the next year or so. A bit later, an old lady living in the same building as my mom, who was once a musician, decided that I worth be given a small electronic piano. Obviously I was quite excited to learn to make music and so I decided to record a bunch of songs. Which ended up being my first album ( 2015 ) "No Respect For Those Who Give Up".
Entropy Is Freedom And It Increases
Once upon the time there was a group of molecules that was oppressed. And there was another group of molecules next to this one that was also oppressed. Both of them had long established traditions of staying in the group and behaving a certain way. But the oppressed molecules decided to riot. Those on the edge with the other group started mixing together and creating interesting patterns never before seen. Molecules on the far end were confused about all of the movement. Suddenly one or two molecules from the other group traveled to those far regions and were not very welcome by the molecules there. But the mixing continued and patterns became more and more complex, until one time the entire thing was mixed as well as it could be and all molecules were equally spread around.
Dumb Phones
"You know they are listening to us this very moment?" - said Jake to Tom on a party one night. "What are you talking about?" - Tom was obviously confused. So Jake had to continue - "You know the Facebook app and the Google app on your phone is constantly recording what we have to say to each other, forming an opinions on us. They claim it's for advertising. But they can use it for anything they want. You know?". Tom looked at Jake with a slight smile. He knew he had a very good comeback. After a short pause Tom said - "I use a dumb phone." - and went into the party. But Jake didn't stop feeling bad. Jake didn't use no phone at all.
The Breakfast Club
Imagine a situation when you have to go to school on a weekend to basically waste your morning there. Imagine that somebody wanted to make a movie about it. It would be the worst kind of movie idea imaginable. How could you even make that interesting? Well John Hughes did. The movie should not work under any circumstance, but it does. And it does so well, it's a bloody cinematic miracle.
Democracy Is Not Enough
People tend to think of Democracy and Freedom as one and the same. And yes, in the modern world you can expect more freedom from countries practicing democracy. And less freedom in any other form of government. And it's because the two are very much linked together. But since people do not understand both: what are the differences between the two; and what Democracy is really trying to achieve, they get sometimes very confused.
Are You Sure That You Remember
Unfinished book about future where freedom is established much better than today. If we look few hundred years into the past, people had less freedom than people have now. So optimistically in future people will even more freedom. Thought, it doesn't mean that the characters will live a care-free problem-free life. Quite the contrary. With freedom comes responsibility. With freedom comes a huge amount of strange situations. And of course, there is the obvious question. How the hell people sell things in the future?
How I Started Using GNU Linux
I have just mislead you into thinking that this article is my story of starting to use GNU / Linux. It's more than that. I think I gonna blabber about anything that comes to my mind when I will try to recollect my memories. I have never tried to write a memoir before in a way that is remotely interesting to read. And I will try to do it right now. But don't hope for it to be remotely interesting. I'm such a dumbass that a) I put "dumbass" in my name and b) I wrote "remotely interesting" tree times in this paragraph in an attempt to make you feel a bit better about the nonsense that is about to begin.
AI The Intellectual Laziness Of Humans
Artificial Intelligence - the last frontier of the electronics. An invention that will alter the course of evolution. For the last few billion years humans slowly evolved an organ that gave us superiority among the animal kingdom. The brain. A machine of logic, reason, curiosity and knowledge. It brought with it civilization. Before there was any civilization people would mindlessly do nothing unless afraid, hungry or horny. Every other animal today just chills most of the time. They don't have jobs. They don't have art. They don't have laws or social responsibilities. Animals are lazy. And humans are not particularly that different from other animals. Since the dawn of civilization we fought against social responsibilities. We fought against hard labor. We fought for our right to do nothing and chill all day long. We invented machine after machine. We replaced hard labor of almost every kind and all due to our superior brain. Until we reached a point where we took it upon ourselves to replace the brain too.
Julian Assange vs Josiah Mizukami
Imagine being locked up in prison for something that's legal. And not even merely legal. For something that is a human right. There is this very small human right, I don't know if you know about it, it's called the Freedom Of Speech. An ability to express your opinion without being persecuted for it. And it's more than essential. It's the cornerstone of things like Freedom in general. Sometimes though bad people that are trying to persecute you for this anyway - are smart. And they will look for any other way of shutting you up if this one is not available for them. Good example is Julian Assange. Not so good example could potentially be Josiah Mizukami.
Who Is The Best Person
How do you judge the best? Do you use the Christian moral goodness as a base for justification? You know values like humility, charity and so on. Or do you use the definition of somebody like Friedrich Nietzsche who believed that goodness is measured in quality? You know, beauty, strength, influence... and so on. To be frank, it seems like it is either that the truth is somewhere in the middle or there are two different types of the same thing. It seems like the word "good" means two different things at once.
Challengers
I was skeptical of Luca Guadagnino's films like Call Me By Your Name until I saw them. It felt like Luca is making high brow dramas that are designed solely as tear-squeezers that appeal to contemporary politics. But then I saw his movies. From Call Me By Your Name to instant horror classics like Bones And All he proved time and time again that he is truly great. His movies are insanely visceral emotional roller-coasters that are not afraid to be sincere, while every other movie these days cannot take anything seriously. But then came a trailer of Luca Guadagnino making a movie about Tennis.
Breaking The Waves
Lars Von Trier is an interesting filmmaker. He directs mostly very depressing movies that are very hard to watch. Breaking The Waves is an interesting case study in his filmography because on some weird level this is one of the rare examples of a Lars Von Trier film with a happy ending. Even though you could perhaps argue that the ending is nowhere near happy at all.
Spy Kids Armageddon
I did not expect Spy Kids Armageddon to be any good. It is written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. A guy who doesn't care about quality that much. His view on film-making was shaped by his first filming experience in 1992 when he made El Mariachi. A movie so cheap that it was weird to a lot of people that it was an action film. Rodriguez has this idea that he can cheat his way into making anything at all. Using as he says "creativity instead of money". So most of his movies tend to look like the Star Wars prequels. A lot of pretty noticeable green screen. Tons of CGI where most other people would use practical props. And strange camera work which is probably more dictated by the limitations of his methods, and not by actual directorial decisions.
Kimi
In some way the movie actually is very similar in concept to Beau Is Afraid. The main character has anxieties about leaving home. And in both films the main character has to go outside on the journey. And in both films the worst type of things happen to them. But while Beau Is Afraid is more about bad situations just being unlucky. In this movie, it is as if the film was written by Richard Stallman and it's a compilation of fears somebody in the Free Software community might feel.
Beau Is Afraid
There is a sub-genre of Horror films categorized by surrealism. It could range between totally insane films like anything directed by David Lynch all the way to something like Mandy by Panos Cosmatos, where it is kind of surreal, but also doesn't actually ask from the audience too much in terms of figuring out what is going on. "Beau Is Afraid" is more toward the David Lynch category of surreal horror.
The 8 Yr Olds
The 8 Year Olds - is a horror / mystery / detective movie project. The story is about a police case of a serial killer who kills only 8 year olds. And the movie is about finding who he is and stopping him.